We aren’t offering any judgment on whether these actions were necessary or unnecessary. The objective is to record every fatal incident and explain what happened, so that people (and police, and policymakers) can better appreciate the scale of what is happening.

The Counted is a project to create the most comprehensive database of fatal police violence in America in 2015. The US government does not have a complete record of people killed by law enforcement. This information is essential for informed public discourse on the use of deadly force by police, especially in light of the intense national debate following the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Rekia Boyd, and others. The Counted already reveals drastic underreporting in the FBI count of police killings, and disparities in the percentage of unarmed Black and white Americans killed by police.

Guardian reporters pull data from police reports, local governments, news and research organizations, and open-source reporting projects. The Counted also encourages crowdsourced accounts from witnesses, who can contact reporters and send files anonymously.